Healthcare for All...Including Elmo

What a historic day this is...Congress working on Sunday and a bold new health-care bill passes.

I can't help but wonder what this means.
Practically.
Those of us in the trenches of health care who must have...
a written prescription with the diagnosis code,
date of transplant,
date of discharge, and
a phone call to the Medicare billing service completed, and
enter 01 in the submission clarification field, and
10000 plus the date of transplant in the prior authorization field
before billing the initial rejection meds for a patient who has just received a transplanted organ.

Thank you U.S. government.

Of course, meeting all these requirements does not mean that Medicare will actually pay you for the thousands of dollars of meds that you dispense to the patient.

I have a sneaking suspicion that within those two thousand pages of health care reform, there are many things that are going to cost me. My paycheck is going to go down and my stress level is going to go up. My hearing may decrease from all of the cheering of the proponents of this bill. My eyesight may be compromised from the comments of the haters who delurk. I have to give Nancy Pelosi props. She is never without lipstick. That folks is my light-hearted segue, which has been introduced to return Lipstick-land to its regularly scheduled programming.

Not surprisingly I monitor the family medicine cabinet. That just makes sense, right? However, we have another medical professional under our roof who is no less vigilant. She even likes to be called Dr. Pretty Girl. She does contend with some overcrowding in her hospital beds though...

and despite her excellent and attentive care, Elmo has been gravely ill for approximately one year (since her first viewing of that "Elmo Goes to the Doctor" video...after which she began practicing medicine herself). JB is a frequent patient and Mr. Lipstick and I are not exempt either. Dr. Pretty Girl reports that her patients (who are comprised of a motley mix of dolls, bears, four lambs, and a turtle) have varied illness involving their heads and their tummies. Most interesting to me was that the turtle was once hospitalized only "because he is sad." I was endlessly impressed with that one.

I wish health care for humans was this simple. I ache for people who skimp on meds or just never seek treatment at all, until of course, it's too late.

Every bit of this problem is sad. It is sad that people can't afford treatment. It is sad that this issue could compromise the financial well being of our country. It is sad that to preserve the financial well being of our country some times the answer will be no...No, that treatment is not covered or No, that medication is not covered. It is sad that those decisions will seem arbitrary and insurmountable.

I can't really agree with President Obama's decisions on much of this issue and honestly, it would just be too boring of a read. I don't agree with a lot of the hassle with Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage and boy, that would be a boring blog post. I do, however, admire President Bush for tackling prescription drug coverage and I admire President Obama for tackling health care reform. Depending on your perspective, sometimes history...well, sucks, but it's still monumental, daunting, and oh so relevant.